Get Power BI Desktop from the Microsoft Store

Last updated on October 24, 2017

If you’re a Power BI Desktop user, you are likely familiar with the monthly update cadence. Once per month, a new Power BI Desktop is released, and normally it contains at least one new feature that you WILL want to use. In case you miss it, a little indicator will light up in the bottom right hand corner that will prompt you to update. Of course, you normally don’t notice this until you’re in the middle of designing something, and it’s never a good time.

Then you do click on the prompt, you’re take to a web page from which to download PBI Desktop. Doing so can take a few minutes (it’s relatively large), and when it starts, more often than not, you’ve forgotten to exit the current PBI Desktop. Once you do, you can run the installer and then you’re up to date. For 30 days. While I think that most of us welcome the new features, this update process itself is cumbersome. Thankfully, the availability of Power BI Desktop in the Microsoft store removes this pain.

Power BI Desktop – Microsoft Store Edition

Getting Power BI Desktop from the Windows store allows you to have it automatically updated in the background whenever new versions are available, just like any other app in the store. To be sure, it is not a separate “Microsoft Store Edition” of the product, but precisely the same product in a Windows Centennial (presumably) wrapper.

Installing Power BI Desktop from the Store

Before installing the store version of Power BI Desktop, it’s a good idea to uninstall the older version. This is not required, and the two can operate side by side, but this will most likely be confusing. The non-store version is uninstalled by opening “Programs and Features” in Control Panel and uninstalling from there. As an aside, the store version will not appear in this list – like other apps, it will only appear in the start menu, and if necessary can be uninstalled by right-clicking on the tile.

To install PBI Desktop, open the store and search for Power BI. At the moment, PBI Desktop does not appear in the search dropdown, but the Power BI app does. The app is not what you’re looking for here. Execute the search and you should see two results, Microsoft Power BI Desktop, and Microsoft Power BI. The icons for the two are very similar (but not identical!). Be sure that you select he one with “Desktop”.

The power BI app is the Windows 10 app for Power BI and is designed for a mobile experience. It is like the versions found on iOS and Android. Selecting the Desktop tile should download and install Power BI Desktop.

Copy Your Saved Settings

One of the downsides of this new isolated model is that all the stored credentials, cached data and saved settings from your prior versions of Power BI desktop do not come forward into the store version. However, the good news is that you can bring them forward manually. To do so, navigate to your AppData folder for Power BI, likely at:

C:\Users\[YourUserName]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Power BI Desktop

Copy everything in this folder (including subfolders) and copy it into:

C:\Users\[YourUserName]\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.MicrosoftPowerBIDesktop_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Local\Microsoft\Power BI Desktop Store App\

The latter is simply the isolated store app version of the former. This content can be relatively large, so it’s a good idea to delete it from the source once finished. Uninstalling the original application does not clean up this content – in fact in my case, as advised above, I uninstalled it prior to the installation of the store app itself.

Once you’re up and running with the store version, you should never need to worry about manually updating Power BI Desktop again.